Sunday, November 16, 2014

A bastion of experimentalism for some of the metal avant- garde’s heaviest hitters, Anatomy Of Habit’s Relapse debut throws out the rulebook and stretches ambitious fingers towards the threshold of perception.

An alchemical mix of doom, noise and goth-tinged post-punk, renowned
vocalist Mark Solotroff intones mantras that may make little sense
within the bewilderingly powerful moment, but when delivered with his
solemnly intoned baritone nevertheless feel revelatory in magnitude, as
the music flourishes to collapse around them. Tumultuous crescendos of
Neurosis-like riffing melt into dreamlike ethereality, the two
20-minutes-plus tracks avoiding the pitfalls of waning attention span by
constantly evolving. Much akin to the experience – and that really is
the word for music like this – of listening to Swans for the first time,
it can be overwhelming in its cinematic scope. Not like listening to
music in the traditional sense, it is about surrendering yourself to a
sonic mystery, a dimension of enigmatic potential, never knowing what is
around the corner and emerging 40 minutes later feeling altered on a
subconscious level.